Dark Tower

Welcome back to the Trove of Ancient Secrets! 

I was reminded of the greatest board game ever.  It was a rare masterpiece even in my youth and has only grown more scarce as time lumbers ever on.  It is an epic game of Good vs Evil, spanning over four great kingdoms all riddled with tombs and ruins, bedeviled by Brigands, beset by an Evil Wizard, and stalked by a ferocious Dragon!

I am, of course, talking about the Milton Bradley fantasy board game called Dark Tower!

In the center of the board stood the Tower itself, really a computer that kept track of all the monsters, as well as your troops and supplies.  Each player starts in a different Kingdom.  No matter which kingdom you start in, you have to retrieve a Key from each of the other Kingdoms.  You must use all three keys--in the proper order--to enter the tower and confront the bad guy.

But that's not all!  You can hire warriors to help you in your fights with Brigands.  You can hire a Healer so you don't lose as many during a fight or from sicknesses you can get during your travels.  You can hire a Scout so you don't get lost during your travels.  But then you have to buy enough food to feed everyone, and sometimes hire a Beast of burden to carry your supplies.  If you're lucky enough to find the Magic Sword, you can kill the Dragon if you happen to cross paths with it!  All of these are represented by different Icons that appear on the Tower.

Once you rally your forces and collect the three Keys, you advance to the Tower and try to unlock the main gate.  If you use the Key in the wrong order...I think you lost at least one of them and had to go find it again.  It's been a long time, I don't recall exactly.

But it was the coolest board game ever!  Stop Theif only had sounds, making it the third-best game ever.*  This had sounds and pictures (and was Fantasy!).  I really can't think of anything else that was quite like it.

I understand that Restoration Games had a Kickstarter to raise funds to make a reboot called Return to Dark Tower.  I believe the Kickstarter was successful, and they were hoping to release the game in July of last year, but I haven't found it anywhere.  The release was probably screwed up by the lockdowns, everything else was.

As for the original Dark Tower, I've only ever seen it on eBay, and if it has all the pieces and actually works--it costs a small fortune!  But I still have very fond memories of that game!

How about you?  Have you ever played Dark Tower?  Were you fortunate enough to have owned it once?  If so, what happened to it?  Tell us about it below in the comments!  

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

*  The Second-Best board game ever is obviously Fireball Island, but you knew that cuz you read my post about it.